School Governors: Training (Hansard, 23 May 1989)

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, the Government are paying education support grant on nearly £5 million of expenditure on school governor training this year. Support will be available for a further two years at much the same level. We have supplied every governor with School Governors: A Guide to the Law and have sponsored national training materials. We are discussing with local education authorities and others the scope for further national initiatives.

§ Lord Taylor of Blackburn
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Perhaps I may congratulate the Government on what they are doing as regards training school governors. However, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware of a publication and also of a pack and a video on the training of governors produced by the Open University in conjunction with the National Association of Governors and Managers? Will he encourage local authorities to use that pack, video and publication?

§ Viscount Davidson
Yes, my Lords. That new package, which was produced last month, aims to help governors understand their new role and to develop skills and confidence. It contains practical proposals for activity-based learning and complements the factual material available to governors in School Governors: A Guide to the Law.

§ Lord Somers
My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree that the training of governors is of far less importance than the training of teaching staff? Does he also agree that governors are not likely to have a great influence on the future of the young, whereas the future of the young is very much in the hands of able and efficient staff?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, under the Education Reform Act of last year, governors will have a legal requirement to fulfil. They will have an extremely important task to perform. It is therefore essential that they be trained in that task as well as possible.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, is not one of the important functions of governors to appoint suitable members of staff and sadly, where members of staff are irremediably unsuitable, to arrange for their redeployment or dismissal? Will part of the £5.3 million, which I am glad to hear that the Government are spending on training governors in the current year, be devoted to seeing that they are well equipped to carry out that and other functions relating to good order and discipline in schools?

§ Viscount Davidson
Yes, my Lords. That will certainly be done.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, is the Minister aware of two reports produced earlier this year by the National Foundation for Educational Research in which it draws attention to the difficulty in recruiting quality governors, particularly in inner cities? That problem is dealt with in the report entitled Reconstitution of Governing Bodies. The report which deals with local management of schools states that they are showing great scepticism about finding 152 governors in industry and commerce. Does the Minister think it possible that, if the Government thought again about paid leave for governors, the situation might change?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, my information is completely different from that of the noble Baroness. The survey of all LEAs conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research shows that the establishment of the new governing bodies has been a tremendous success. The responses suggest that only about 1 per cent. of places are unfilled and most of those are for governors to be co-opted.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree with me that for a governing body to be effective it should create and develop a healthy independence from its local education authority? However, that is not to say that it should not work with its local education authority. Does he further agree that too much training laid on only by the local education authority will thwart that independence and that there will not be a genuine interface between parents, school and local education authority?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, all governors are entitled to training, but setting up a full training programme to meet the needs of over 300,000 people of widely differing levels of experience will take a little time. We hope that governors will help LEAs to design training programmes which are geared to their needs and take account of their priorities.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, can the noble Viscount say whether the Government have given any support to the principle of governors being fully reflective of the local community? Can he say whether the video to which he refers, which I hope will find its way into our Library at some time so that we can see it, says anything at all about the governors and their relationship to the local community and, in particular, aspects of what might be called their representative nature?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, I have not seen the video either and perhaps we can all look at it together at some stage. I can say to the noble Lord that the National Foundation for Educational Research has commissioned a sample survey of 500 schools and that survey will cover such matters as the number of candidates standing for election, and the gender, ethnic group and occupational background of the governors.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, perhaps I may return to a theme which has occupied me for a long time and ask yet again whether any thought has been given to the political complexion of governing bodies?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, I am sure that thought is continually being given to that point.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, can the noble Viscount say who is actually doing the training?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, I shall have to ask the noble Lord to come and look at the video with us.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, the noble Viscount did not answer my previous question about whether there is any difficulty in recruiting governors—certainly it is apparent that there is difficulty in some cases. May I therefore ask him whether the Government will reconsider the question of paid leave for governors?

§ Viscount Davidson
My Lords, that is a matter for the local education authorities. To go back to the previous question, of course the training is being done by the LEAs.